


Do you want to play these cards?

by Neuqe



Series: Neuqe's Jimon Week [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Day 1, First Meetings, Fluff, Human AU, Jimon Week, M/M, Other characters get mentioned, Social Media AU, it is very vague, or an attempt of social media au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 03:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9697010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neuqe/pseuds/Neuqe
Summary: Simon and Jace meet when they get their hands stuck in a vending machine





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry how vaguely this fills the prompt of social media au but I really love this ship and I wanted to take part in this week but I ended up in a hurry.

A lot of embarrassing things has happened to Simon in his relatively short life, and he is convinced that  somehow he always has the worst luck in the northern hemisphere, and therefore he is not very surprised when he realises his hand is stuck in a vending machine.

In retrospect, it was not his wisest decision to put his hand into the vending machine, but he had been _desperate._

After spending hours at a mall with his sister trying to find a perfect birthday present for their mother, he had been starving but because the present had been expensive, all he could afford at that moment was a candy bar from a vending machine.

Of course, the machine had taken last of his coins and the machine did not drop out the candy bar, and in a moment of desperation, the only logical thing was to stick his hand into the machine and fish the candy bar out. It was the perfect plan, except for a small inconvenience that his hand was firmly stuck in the mall’s vending machine.

After fifteen minutes, he is still on his knees next to the vending machine, and people who are passing by are giving him odd looks, but he is grateful that no one approaches him. He does not need a witness for his embarrassment.  He is squirming his right hand, but it is hopeless. His hand is not moving, and it is only starting to hurt more if he moves it.

He lets out an exasperated sigh, and curses mentally all of his life choices that have led to this moment.

“Do you need help?”

Simon is startled by the sudden voice, and turns his head to see the person who had arrived to mock his misery.

An incredibly attractive blond man is staring down at him with an amused expression. He crosses his arms, and tilts his head. He looks as if he has a difficult time to contain his laughter.

“Uh, maybe?” Simon says, and feels himself to blush from pure embarrassment. He pushes his glasses up, and glances at the man again.

He takes his backpack off and places it to the floor next to the vending machine, and crouches down. Soon he is as well on all fours next to the vending machine.

“I’m not sure if you wanna do that,” Simon starts, “the floor is quite dirty.”

He glances around the floor that once might have been white, but is now grey and covered with occasional candy wrappers and something that looks suspiciously lot like chewed gum.

“I think it’s a necessary evil if we want to get your hand out from the machine,” he answers with a huge grin and Simon only now realises how _close_ the man is to him.

It is a serious violation of personal space, and he can feel his breath on his face, but he cannot bring himself to care. He wants his hand out of the vending machine, and staring at ridiculously attractive man’s face from up close is not the worst thing he could have to do to achieve it.

Simon is ready to admit that sticking his hand into the vending machine was the stupidest decision he did during that day, but letting the stranger to stick his hand into the vending machine is definitely the second on that list.

“I feel like we should be on first name basis by now,” Simon mutters as the man changes his position to get his hand deeper into the machine, and his hair ends up against Simon’s face.

“I’m Jace,” he says, almost in a conversational tone, as if the situation is completely normal.

He turns his hand around, and wriggles a bit more. He looks so concentrated, and Simon has to try his best not to laugh.

“I’m Simon,” he answers at the same moment as Jace pulls out his hand out from the machine.

He opens his palm and reveals the slightly suffered candy bar. He looks almost proud of his achievement and his smile is brilliant. He hands the candy bar to him.

“Thanks,” he says, and puts it on the floor, “but can we focus on the task at hand?”

Simon chuckles at his own pun, and Jace only rolls his eyes before he puts his hand back into the vending machine.

He is convinced the situation could not get any worse but somehow Jace constantly touching his hand is making it worse.

“My hand is stuck as well,” Jace informs few minutes later with a sheepish smile.

“You’re kidding me.”

“I wish I was,” Jace says, and tries to pull his hand out but it is not moving at all, “but I am not.”

Simon groans, and stares at Jace, who has the nerve to grin at him.

“You aren’t much help, are you?” He asks, but his tone has no heat in it.

Jace pretends to be shocked. “How can you say that? I got your candy bar out.”

“And yet you somehow made the situation even worse,” Simon answers, and gestures towards their hands.

Jace shrugs as well as he can in his position. “These things happen.”

“How many times you have got your hand stuck in a vending machine with a stranger?” Simon deadpans.

“Now that you ask, this is the first time,” he answers with a thoughtful expression.

“I’m honoured,” Simon answers with an eye roll.

“You should be,” Jace says with a smirk, and glances around the hallway, which is mostly empty. Only one elderly woman is glaring at them from a bench.

Simon snorts.

“Why you even decided to help me?” He asks out of curiosity. He is rather overwhelmed by the kindness of a complete stranger.

“Because I’m a good person, and you looked pretty helpless. It also helped that you’re pretty cute,” Jace continues with the same conversational tone, but his smile is soft.

“Thanks,” Simon stammers, and he stays quiet for a moment, “I guess the only way this could be worse if I was alone here.”

“That warms my heart,” Jace deadpans, and tries to move his arm again without any visible results. He keeps staring at the machine, and it looks like he considers getting their hands out as a challenge rather than anything else.

Simon thinks it is a borderline catastrophe.

“Should we try again?” Jace suggests.

Simon sighs deeply. “Sure, but if you break my arm, I’ll sue you.”

He laughs genuinely, and his laughter is light. Simon cannot help but think how beautiful his laugh is.  “Good luck with that, my brother is one of the best attorneys in the city.”

“Of course he is,” Simon mutters under his breath.

They try everything they possibly can think of. Teamwork, different positions, ways and paces of squirming, pulling, pushing and sliding but nothing changes the fact that they are stuck.

“Do you think these things have emergency numbers? Like in elevators?” Simon asks after he has concluded that any effort of getting their hands out is pointless.

“I don’t know but they definitely should. We cannot be the first poor souls to find ourselves from this situation.” he answers, and starts to look around the vending machine to find something that could help them.

Simon does the same, and notices a very tiny sign that contains a customer service number.

“Shall we call the customer service?” He asks as he points the sign.

“Worth the try,” Jace says, and Simon reads the number aloud to him, and soon he is dialling the number to his phone.

“We’re on queue,” Jace eventually says, and offers the phone to Simon. All he can hear is annoyingly pleasant and soft jazz music from the other end. Simon feels like crying. The last thing he needs is some sort of customer service nightmare.

Minutes pass and Jace keeps him updated about the queue, he tells every time the song changes, and quite quickly he comes to a conclusion that they only have two songs, and he mentions every time an answering machine woman tells them to wait.

“Yes, hello,” Jace finally says to the phone, “my friend and I ran into a small problem with one of your vending machines. Our hands are stuck in it and we are unable to get them out.”

Simon does not pay attention to what Jace is telling the customer service. He is not keen on reliving the past forty-five minutes again in the form of paraphrasing. He is exhausted, starving and his legs are starting to hurt.

“I have good and bad news,” Jace declares and slips his phone to the pocket of his jeans, “the good news is that the maintenance staff is on their way, but the bad news is that they are on the other side of the city, so we’ll be here a bit longer.”

***

It takes another hour before the maintenance staff arrives to their rescue.

Simon learns a lot about Jace during that hour. He tells about his siblings, and it is obvious from the way he talks about them that he loves all three of them a lot and values their happiness. He talks about his cat, his adoptive parents, and his studies and about the small café, which he owns. He jokes and laughs a lot, and Simon cannot help but like him. He even seems genuinely interested when Simon tells about his family, his mother’s birthday and his studies and school stress.

He probably would have enjoyed the conversation a lot more if the circumstances had been different.

The maintenance staff has to dismantle most of the vending machine to free their hands. They are somewhere in-between of annoyance and amusement during the whole project of taking apart the machine.

As soon as his hand is free, Simon stands up, and stretches by shaking every limp he has. He tries to shake the arm that was stuck, but soon comes to a realisation that it is not a very wise decision as the pain increases.

“I have never been happier about blood circulation,” he says, and rubs his hand, which is numb, red and throbbing with pain.

Jace stands up as well, and examines his own hand, but stops as soon as he sees his hand. He crosses the distance between them, and gently takes Simon’s hand into his before Simon even realises what is happening. He looks at his hand, and tenderly strokes it.

“Is your hand okay?” He asks, and looks up, “if not, I’m sure my sister can take a look at it. She’s a doctor,” he continues.

“It’s fine,” Simon says, even though he is not looking at his hand. He is staring at Jace’s face, and as soon as he realises this, he quickly pulls his hand away and rubs it against his leg.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it does not hurt that much,” he convinces, but he is not quite sure who he is trying to convince more, himself or Jace.

He is about to crack a joke to convince Jace he is absolutely alright and that his hand does not require medical attention, but he accidently glances at the huge clock on the wall, and realises he is half an hour late from his mother’s birthday party.

He takes his phone from the pocket of his jeans and sees six missed calls from Rebecca.

“Shit,” he whispers, and types a quick message to his sister. He looks up from his phone, and Jace seems puzzled. He is still staring at him, and the maintenance staff is reassembling the vending machine next to them.

“Sorry, I really need to go,” Simon explains quickly, and he makes a vague gesture towards the main exit. “I’m already late, and yeah,” he rambles, and his thoughts are more occupied by how he is going to explain his mom why he is late than what he is currently saying to Jace.

He waves a goodbye and rushes towards the doors before Jace has a chance to respond.

***

A week later, Simon’s roommate, Clary, storms into his room obviously excited about something.

“Simon! Look at this,” she says with a beaming smile as she sits next to him on his bed. She gives him her phone to his left hand where he does not have a cast on, and Simon realises he is staring at a tweet with a screenshot of a large chunk of text. He clicks on it to make it bigger, and starts to read.

“ _Last Friday, I met a person in a way one does not usually meet new acquaintances: our hands got stuck in a vending machine. That’s how I met Simon.”_   

His heart is pounding, and he looks at Clary with a confused expression. Her grin is wide, and she keeps laughing.

“Read the whole thing,” she urges, and nudges his arm.

“ _One learns a lot about a person when they are stuck with each other for hours. Frankly, I wasn’t planning on spending the Friday afternoon on the floor of a mall but I liked the company. I have not been able to contact him since and I know this is a long shot-“_

Simon quickly reads the end of the short post where Jace explains that he wants to find him again and asks people to retweet his tweet so he might be able to see it.

“Does that sound familiar?” Clary laughs as she notices that he has finished reading it.

Simon keeps staring at the phone. “Where did you find this?”

“You know Isabelle?” Clary asks, and Simon does not even bother to answer. He knows this a rhetorical question because Clary’s new crush is all she has been able to talk about for days. “She retweeted this. Jace is her brother,” she explains.

“She’s a doctor?” Simon asks confusedly only remembering Jace’s rambles about his arm.

“Studying to be a one,” Clary clarifies and pokes Simon in the arm. “What are you going to do?”

“I guess I’m going to answer,” he says, and a smile forms on his lips.

He has been thinking about Jace a lot since their encounter, but he was convinced he was never going to see him again. He cannot fully comprehend that Jace wants to meet him again and was ready to search for him. The mere thought makes his stomach flutter.

“Yes, I’m happy for you,” Clary answers with a huge smile. She lets him to check Jace’s twitter handle from her phone before she leaves the room to call Isabelle.

Simon sends him a direct message.

_“You are really determined to make one of the worst Friday afternoons of my life into an epic love story.”_

It takes only few minutes for Jace to reply.

_“You found me! And I’m definitely trying”_

_“Apparently my best friend knows your sister”_

_“It’s a small world”_

Simon tries to think of a reply but Jace is faster.

_“I wasn’t even sure if you wanted to talk to me again.”_

He is confused when he reads the message and tries to deduce what he did to make Jace think he was not interested.

_“Why?”_

Simon is genuinely puzzled and curious.

_“You left swiftly after you were not stuck with me in a physical proximity and apparently I’m a part of the worst Friday of your life.”_

He snorts before typing another message.

_“First of all, I was late from my mom’s birthday. Second of all, it has a lot more to do with the vending machine and getting my hand stuck in it, than it has to do with you.”_

_“Speaking of which, how’s the hand?”_

Simon tries to take a picture of his cast but it surprisingly difficult with only one working hand. The picture ends up being blurry but it gets the message across.

_“You lied to me, you said it was fine.”_

_“It’s only a small fracture. How’s yours?”_

In Simon’s defence, he thought his hand was all right. It was only after few days of agonizing pain and after a long visit to emergency room before he realised it was not in the best condition.

_“Been better, but it is definitely better than yours.”_

_“I didn’t realise this was a competition.”_

Jace does not answer for a while, and Simon gets anxious and he types another message.

_“Speaking of your tweet, I kinda want to meet you again, too.”_

It is not the wisest decision as sending a riskier message really does not ease his nerves but fortunately Jace answers quickly this time.

_“A date?”_

_“When?”_

_“Are you free tonight?”_

_“Yes”_

Jace sends him the address of his café and tells him to meet him there at six. Simon cannot stop grinning. In retrospect, getting his hand stuck in a vending machine might have been the best thing that has happened to him.

**Author's Note:**

> I really don't know how this ended up being so long and the whole idea is kind of ridiculous and it is a bit messy but I had fun writing it. All the mistakes are mine. The title is from "One and Only" by Teitur


End file.
